4.5 Assignment Critical Reflection Journal – Blog
The Impact of Stress on Academic Performance of Online Students
Write a reflective blog post on this week’s readings, Roundtable dialogue, and/or action research learnings. The blog writing may be your choice, but it must be substantive, including outside scholarly works, etc.
The Impact of Stress on the Academic Performance of Online Students
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities in the United States were forced to close their doors and move to an online format in March 2020. Millions of students were forced to finish the semester remotely, resulting in extraordinary disruptions to higher education throughout the United States. Although the CDC indicates COVID-19 poses a low risk to the health and mortality of college-aged students, the pandemic has resulted in considerable uncertainty and distress among students.
One area of concern for students in higher education is academic stress relating to their ability to succeed in this new environment. Though enrollment in online courses has grown over the past several years, many students still need to become more familiar with remote learning. Incidentally, before COVID-19, only 35% of United States college students took one or more online courses. This raises concern that one of the best predictors of academic success in an online format is prior online course experience.
The lack of experience may also be compounded by challenging home conditions, including losing access to educational resources (e.g., computers and internet connectivity) and distractions in the home learning environment. Initial research shows that at-home distractions (including disruptions from other family members and additional responsibilities) are significant challenges for college students learning from home, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. These factors are likely to lead to substantial academic stress and uncertainty. Aside from dealing with stressors related to a potentially unfamiliar online learning environment, students are also coping with several other stressors related to academic performance. However, studies from the United States addressing connections between stress and the academic performance of online students thus far have been limited to students from single institutions.
